Friday, May 6, 2016

CC’s Coffee House continues expansion across Louisiana

Since spinning off from parent company Community Coffee three years ago, CC’s Coffee House has opened 12 franchise locations, with 10 more either under construction or in the final site selection phase and scheduled to be open by early 2017.

The franchise-owned locations are in addition to the 19 company-owned CC’s Coffee House locations. So far, all of the company and franchise-owned locations are in Louisiana, except for one in Mississippi, and CC’s President and CEO Celton Hayden says plans call for keeping the focus in state for the time being.

“Our goal is to grow concentrically out from our strongest base of support,” he says. “If opportunities come about that fall within our distribution area I’ll take a look at it, but we’re not looking to grow stores in Denver or New York.”

Though the distinction between a license and a franchise is mostly semantic, Hayden says CC’s licensing program is different than a traditional franchise program in that licensees must have a net worth of at least $5 million and commit to operating multiple stores.

“It enables us to partner with people who give us extreme confidence that they’re in it for the long haul and have a lot of know how,” he says. “We want a sophisticated investor … a qualified operator who is willing to commit to two, three, five locations.”

The first CC’s Coffee House opened in 1995 in New Orleans. Among the locations currently under construction are: New Orleans at Canal Street, Harahan, Gretna, Youngsville, Houma and Port Allen. Stores are also planned for Covington, Carencro, Thibodaux and Alexandria.